Understanding U-AGREE: EuroUSC Italia Insights on UAS Environmental Impact

Marta Gouveia is a Safety and Compliance Engineer at EuroUSC Italia. In U-AGREE her work focuses on improving the SORA ground risk model, with particular contributions to the estimation of ground impact consequences. Within this context, she has supported the extension of ground risk evaluation beyond safety outcomes to include environmental, economic, and reputational impacts. Her work also involves the detailed assessment of the severity of additional negative effects of UAS operations beyond ground impacts.

In this interview, she shares her insights on how environmental risks are defined, assessed, and integrated within the U-AGREE framework.

How are “environmental risks” defined within the context of UAS operations?

In U-AGREE, environmental risks refer to the negative effects of UAS operations on the environment, beyond direct safety risks. These include noise and visual pollution, emissions, wildlife disturbance, and environmental impacts resulting from ground crashes (e.g. debris, fire, and battery leakage). In the project, these effects are captured through qualitative and quantitative severity indicators, forming part of an extended Ground Risk Model. 

Which factors or variables are considered most critical in evaluating environmental risks?  

U-AGREE identifies several key factors, including: 

• Noise exposure (intensity, duration, number of people or animals affected) 
• Visual pollution (visibility of drones, duration of exposure) 
• Emissions use (especially CO₂-equivalent emissions) 
• Wildlife disturbance, particularly in protected or sensitive areas 
• Operational context, such as population density, environmental sensitivity, and flight frequency 

How does the U-AGREE project approach and implement the environmental risk model? 

The U-AGREE project integrates environmental considerations into the Ground Risk Model by systematically defining specific environmental impact domains relevant to drone operations. For each of these domains, it applies qualitative severity scores ranging from low to medium and high, to reflect the potential level of environmental impact. These assessments are further refined through the use of weight factors derived from societal concern data, including insights from EASA studies on the societal acceptance of Urban Air Mobility in Europe, ensuring that public perception and environmental priorities are adequately reflected. Finally, all inputs are combined into composite severity indicators, which provide a structured and comparable basis to support decision-making and ensure that environmental risks are consistently accounted for within the overall risk assessment framework. 

What results or preliminary findings have U-AGREE achieved so far regarding this risk? 

Initial findings from U-AGREE show that environmental impact is strongly dependent on both the operational context and the way drones are deployed. Preliminary scenario analyses indicate that urban delivery operations tend to score higher in terms of environmental impact, mainly due to cumulative noise levels and increased visual exposure in densely populated areas. In contrast, operations conducted in protected natural areas may result in lower direct human disturbance, but can still generate significant ecological impacts, particularly on wildlife and sensitive habitats. The model also highlights that while electric drones contribute to a substantial reduction in emissions compared to conventional alternatives, they do not fully eliminate other forms of environmental disturbance, such as noise pollution or ecological disruption. Overall, these early results underline the importance of a context-sensitive assessment of environmental effects in drone operations.